In a post entitled How Many Democrats Are The Koch Brothers Backing in November? for IVN this week, W. E. Messamore asserts that the Kochs and their appendages are "staunchly anti-war... and support gay marriage and a woman’s right to choose." Yet they-- or their money-- were key in electing an unchecked war-mongering, homophobic, anti- Choice government. Messamore also points out that they support some Democratic candidates "if they hear from any who speak their language." What language is that? The Kochs want what they call "pro growth federal policies such as sound fiscal policies and deregulating the financial industry." Does that mean climate catastrophe and large scale financial fraud are "pro-growth?" Well, there are some Democrats in one of both of those camps. The Democrats, after all, don't have a massive and growing Republican wing for nothing.A Koch-financed ad that ran in North Dakota a couple of months ago, thanked right-of-center Democrap Heidi Heitkamp "for her leadership role in working on the Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act." So far this year, the Kochs have given a direct cash contribution to just one Democrap: Collin Peterson, who votes more frequently on crucial roll calls with the GOP than with the Democrats. "He’s a fiscal conservative," understates Messamore, "who supports tax cuts and the FairTax (a national sales tax plan to replace the income tax), so it’s no wonder that Koch Industries likes him." You gotta love this reactionary tax policies that take from the poor to give to the rich!The Kochs are doing ads for right-of-center Democraps Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM), Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA) and Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA). Oh, yeah... and Pelosi's DCCC chair Ben Ray Luján (NM).Yesterday, Will Bunch wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer about a Democratic Party fractured into 3 wings. "There is," he wrote "a huge disconnect within the Democratic Party right now-- a rift that was critical to 2016's shock election of President Trump. The re-emergence of the one modern Democrat who could glue many of these broken pieces together-- Barack Obama, who brings his energetic push for the party's 2018 candidates to Philadelphia on Friday-- and a looming midterm election in which anger over an autocratic president can be channeled into state and local races are likely to paper over this Democratic family feud… for now."
But when voters wake up on November 7, they'll hear the gong to start the sure-to-be-insane national election of 2020, with as many as 20 or more candidates from delusional billionaires to congressmen you've never heard of prepared to yank hard on every gaping fault line within the party of Andrew Jackson, FDR and JFK. Those cleavages could give Trump a second term in much the same unlikely way that he won his first one. And yet when you put your ear to the ground and listen to the Democratic rumblings, the various sides still don't understand each other, or even know how to talk to each other without yelling.Here's a quick field guide to the three Democrats you meet on Twitter, or in the voting booth… or sitting on their couch when they should be voting:The Bernie Sanders Democrat@IronStacheThe Bernie Sanders Democrat very often doesn't even call himself or herself a Democrat, preferring terms like progressive or democratic socialist or, increasingly, registering as an independent, as Sanders himself does. Although you find them everywhere, this species of left-of-center voter predominates among the under-30 electorate, in cities and especially in gentrifying neighborhoods; it tends to be somewhat more male than female. Animated by the holy trinity of Medicare-for-all, free college and the $15 minimum wage, they are leftists who may engage in Democratic politics but spend most of their time complaining about Democrats, or at least Democratic elites, as too tied to big corporations and big donors and too happy to bend over for Wall Street.The Hillary Clinton DemocratHillaryThe Hillary Clinton Democrat, a cohort that is overwhelmingly female, tending to be white, suburban, and middle or even upper-middle-class, often with a college degree. Some of them even voted Republican back in the 1980s or '90s for the low taxes-- but started drifting away after Anita Hill in 1991 or as they saw the GOP get more Southern and then more crazy. These voters felt existential shock and despair when they saw America (technically, the Electoral College) reject a qualified woman-- whose life struggles mirrored their own-- in favor of a man whose non-stop lying and admission of sexual assault was now their worst nightmare in the Oval Office. Their profound sense that the world has betrayed them has made them the backbone of the so-called Trump Resistance.The John Lewis DemocratAndrewThe John Lewis Democrat, in honor of the 1960s civil-rights icon still in Congress, although you could also call them Andrew Cuomo Democrats or Dianne Feinstein Democrats, since their votes tend to keep these establishment figures in power, despite the derision from the far left. Tending to be older and often (but not exclusively) non-white, this group reflects the growing conventional wisdom that the real base of the Democratic Party is older, church-going African-American women. These are the Democrats who-- quite unlike the Bernie Sanders crowd-- are proud to identify as Democrats, having grown up revering tales of FDR or JFK. They tend to prefer politicians who can cut deals and win resources for their communities over those with lofty but impractical ideas. And they cherish their right to vote and show up at the polls religiously, which is what gives them such outsized influence.
So which of these groups do you think the Koch-Democrats come from? Hint, not the first category, that's for sure. And which wing do these congressional members belong to? Personally, I only look at the Democratic Party as two wings-- the Democratic wing, generally about accomplishing progressive goals for working families, and the Republican wing, generally corrupt careerists who don't real believe in much of anything.